Just wondering if there are any out there who recollect the operations of the JFK TWA terminal. In particular, I'm wondering how the airline adapted the building for the post-deregulation era. For example, how did they add security checkpoints to the building? How was baggage handled? Was the building expanded/added onto? Anyway, feel free to share. Always have loved the architecture of "classic" JFK.

TWA was, and will always be my favorite airline and I miss the feeling of being treated like family when I flew on them. It was quite a culture shock when I transitioned to AA after the takeover.

I remember that security was almost as soon as you entered the terminal, before you walked down the steps in the main terminal. When TWA expanded into the adjoining former National Airlines terminal, they had a outside but covered baggage conveyor system to transfer baggage between terminals, it was near the outside walkway between the terminals. As far as I know they never expanded the terminal itself, I think they added more gates on the adjoining piers, which you got to by walking through the tubes.

Living in NYC at the time, I went to what was then Idlewild Airport every time a new airline terminal opened or when one of the airlines put a B-707 or DC-8 into service replacing the piston engine airliners. I went to the TWA terminal about a week after it opened and at the time there was no restrictions about walking to the gates or even on to the airplanes themselves, so I would sit there and watch the new jet airliners load up and depart. Some other airline terminals had outside observation decks like the Eastern, Pan Am and the International Arrivals Building, but the TWA terminal did not have one so I did my spotting from inside.